


Once and Again

by Kalpirock



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Major Character Injury, Redemption, hi guys gay people are my imaginary friends and i have too much time on my hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:40:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 21,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25996147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalpirock/pseuds/Kalpirock
Summary: An brief exploration of why Katagawa Jr turned out the way he did, and some thoughts on what could have happened if he lived, all wrapped up with a healthy dose of gay people.
Relationships: Katagawa Jr./Rhys (Borderlands)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i dont really use ao3 much so if there are better or other tags i should have used for this im sorry, i did my best :* also i dont think the given violence is graphic enough to count for an archive warning but if youre sensitive to it please be careful

Torao Katagawa was 22, dressed to the nines, and Jesus _fuck_ , he wanted to go home.

It was day one of a multi-day event for the express purpose of Hyperion selling Eridium slag to everyone else. Maliwan, with its reputation for elemental weapons, was positively frothing at the mouth to make a good deal, but Torao would rather drop dead than be the one to make it happen. One of his older siblings could have done it, if only they didn’t all think of themselves as too good to do this shit.

That wasn’t even bothering to mention Hyperion themselves. Among a long list of other complaints, every time Torao had been to a Hyperion business event before, the place had been nice enough, but in a particularly tacky kind of way. Jack hadn’t yet figured out yet what the color palette of a sophisticated event might look like, or that Hyperion’s particular shade of yellow should not be part of it.

At least this time the man himself had bothered to show his face. In a clearer patch of a crowded conference floor, Torao had caught Jack just leaving a different conversation, and intercepted his path. Jack quickly noticed, and swung one hand out to the side as a casual gesture before clapping the same hand into a handshake. “Hey-y-y, kiddo.” 

“Torao Katagawa. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Torao braced himself for what he knew would be coming next.

“Katagawa, eh? The rest of your family’s got better things to do, I guess.” There it was. Jack laughed, and Torao grit his teeth and forced a chuckle. 

“I’m sure they’d have loved to be here.” Torao did his best impression of someone who was happy to be having this conversation. “What I’ve seen so far today is impressive. Maliwan is _very_ interested in negotiating an agreement.”

“I bet you are. Listen, kid, I gotta run. Important ‘president of a company’ business. But I’m sure that if you look around, one of my people out here on the floor is willing to have a chat with you. Got it? See you around.” And like that, he was gone. Torao’s lip curled into a sneer. Bastard.

Seeking out Hyperion personnel who had anything to say worth listening to sounded like a chore. Instead, Torao grabbed a drink while walking past a waiter with a tray, and found an unpopulated area to sit and wait. In his experience, Hyperion was _not_ populated by a lot of people with a spine or too much pride. If they spotted him looking bored and perhaps a little lost, one of them was bound to materialize on their own. At least if they were stupid, he hadn’t put much energy into getting ahold of them. 

As if summoned, a young man split from the crowd and approached. Torao had seen him before, but only in passing last time he’d had the displeasure of interacting with Hyperion. He had an Echo eye implant, so one of his eyes was sometimes an electric blue which became unnerving if you looked too long. 

The man stuck out one hand, which was metal, painted Hyperion yellow. Unbelievable. Torao stood up before firmly shaking his hand. “Torao Katagawa. I’m from Maliwan.”

The Hyperion man’s eyes widened. “Katagawa? Wow. I’m Rhys Strongfork. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Is there anything I can help with?” 

“Rhys,” Torao echoed. This guy was smart enough to know what family he was talking to, but not quite smart enough to know which member of that family. Easy to manipulate. “Walk with me, will you?” He turned and began walking without saying anything, and he could hear Rhys briefly jog to keep up. “It’s good to get a breath of fresh air once in a while when you’re in a room full of people.”

They passed through a nearby door to the outside, which was held open to allow traffic to flow freely through. “Yeah, it really is. At least, as fresh as air gets on a space station.”

Before he could respond, Torao heard footsteps he couldn’t place, and looked over his shoulder to see a sharply dressed woman strolling casually a distance behind them. To Torao’s dismay, he could see a Maliwan insignia on her collar not unlike his own. 

Rhys turned as well a moment later. “Is she with you?”

“You could say that.” After seeing her for more than a moment, he could tell that she was one of the ‘bodyguards’ sent with him, actually intended to make sure that he stayed on task. He had once expressed to his family that he was sick of being sent to these ‘talk to a room full of people’ events, and instead of listening, they took it to mean they better keep an eye on him. Frustration began to splinter through his chest; he had left the building less than a minute ago, and they were already on his tail. 

Rhys raised one hand and tried to wave to the Maliwan woman, but Torao’s nearest arm snapped upwards to physically stop him. Rhys didn’t speak, but hummed a questioning tone. 

Torao released his grip on Rhys’s wrist. He needed an excuse and found himself very terribly lacking; there wasn’t a good way to explain why he was effectively running away from his own employee. There was a moment of silence, and the Maliwan woman looked down at her Echo device. 

Torao clenched his jaw. He didn’t even want to be here, and he was being babysat like a child. He was already mildly upset and decently tired, and now the woman was here to shepherd him back inside, lest he forget that he was here only to be a game piece in making a lucrative deal for a company that he would never-

Actually, fuck this. He was going to have some fun with the rest of the night if it killed him.

“You know, it’s just so nice to have a moment of peace. It’s been a busy day so far, and I’ve barely had time to appreciate Helios.” Torao started walking again, making it around a corner and into a less-well lit area. Rhys followed, and perked up a little at the mention of Helios.

“I could show you around a little? Only if you want to, of course.” Hook, line, and sinker. Torao had hoped that Rhys would be eager to impress, and that by asking about a topic Rhys would know about, he could distract him.

“I would love that.” Torao tried to glance subtly in the direction they had come to see if the Maliwan woman had appeared yet. Rhys once again followed his glance, and this time knew better than to bring the Maliwan woman into it. He turned and led the way away from the conference area, waving Torao along behind him.

Rhys’s path led them through an open pavilion, segmented into three parts and dotted around the edge with bushes. The area was mostly unlit; street lights were present but turned off as if no one was expected to be coming this way. A couple of other groups of people were milling around, but they were far apart from each other and keeping mostly to themselves. 

“This is the lunch break spot for the outdoorsy types. There’s a couple of stores over there, but they’re closed at the moment. The lady who runs the sandwich shop is… interesting. She asks everyone if they’ve been taking good care of their teeth.”

Torao couldn’t help but grin slightly. “Someone’s got to stay on top of it, I suppose.”

“If only it got through to some of my coworkers.” Rhys pointed ahead of them, towards a brass-colored statue of Jack puffing out his chest. “There’s plenty of those around. It’s-”

Torao’s echo implant went off. Rhys stopped talking upong hearing it, and Torao felt his body tense. He couldn’t catch a break, could he?

The visual overlay from his implant eye told him it wasn’t anyone he was related to, so he wasn’t in real trouble yet. He answered the call, said, “I’m busy,” and immediately hung up again. 

“Sorry for the interruption. What were you saying?” He tried to keep the conversation moving in such a way that Rhys wouldn’t try to ask what the problem was. There still wasn’t a good way to explain he was trying to avoid his responsibilities out of spite. 

Rhys looked at Torao quietly for just a moment, then took a 90 degree turn from the direction the two had been walking, gesturing for Torao to follow. “I think I know the spot you want to see.”

The door they walked up to appeared closed and not interested in opening. Rhys walked up to it, and examined the control panel. “Just a sec.” His Echo eye visibly lit up, sending a blue glow over one side of his face in the lowlight. A moment later the door opened on its own.

They had entered a building with a long staircase and a large, mostly empty room at the top. The wall opposite the stairs was completely glass, curving to connect smoothly with the roof. It offered a spectacular view of the nearby positive-atmosphere parts of Helios, as well as Pandora with a whole sky’s worth of stars as a backdrop. From this angle it was possible to see some of the color from the local galaxy. 

“Here it is!” Rhys held up his arms, gesturing broadly towards the room. “This is technically a meeting room but it doesn’t get a whole lot of use as one.”

“I can’t imagine why not.” Torao set down his drink on one of the tables and drifted towards the window. He had seen some sights in his life, and he hated to hand it to Hyperion, but even though it involved the pile of sand and trash that was Pandora, this was nothing to be scoffed at. “It’s lovely.” 

“It’s meant for management a little more influential than me, but it’s a little out of their way and they never bother. I figured out how to get in without asking” -his eye lit up for just a moment- “so now me and a couple of my friends use it. Neither of them are on Helios right now, though.”

“Just your little secret for now, huh?” Torao leaned forward on the railing in front of the glass wall.

“Well, ours now.” Rhys approached and mimicked Torao’s posture, leaning against the railing as well. “It’s meant to be decently secure in here. This window is one-way, and there’s a bit of signal jamming in the walls.” Rhys tapped at his head near the Echo implant on his temple. “Offline stuff works fine, but getting online is a whole _thing_.”

“Thank fuck.” Torao breathed. Rhys failed badly at suppressing a laugh, and Torao looked sideways at him, relaxing enough to smile. “What?”

“Nothing. I don’t mean to-” Rhys’s speech was punctuated with giggles. “I dunno. You’ve had your whole ‘man of good breeding’ act going the whole time and you caught me off guard with the cursing.”

“Act?” Torao was pretending to be offended, but he didn’t wipe the grin off his face. “How do you know I don’t just have a ‘pretentious asshole’ speech impediment?” 

“Damn, that must be hard for you.” Rhys had not collected himself, and kept giggling in fits and starts. 

“It’s awful. Runs in the family. My oldest brother has it worst. Poor bastard talks like he’s too good to step foot in a kitchen.” Torao couldn’t remember the last time he had the chance to ease up and joke with someone. It felt nice to be talked to like a person for once. 

“Wow, I hope they find a cure soon.” Rhys breathed out a couple last chuckles. 

“Yeah, me too.” 

There was an extended pause before Torao spoke again, in a lower tone. “This really is beautiful. Thanks for bringing me here.”

“No problem. Sometimes weather events happen on Pandora and you can see them from here. It’s always great.” 

“I didn’t know Pandora had weather events. Thought it was just upsettingly sunny all the time.”

“Well, for most of Pandora that’s true.” Rhys pointed vaguely at the right-hand edge of Pandora through the window. “Places like Aegrus with more moisture have all sorts of terrible weather, though.”

“I almost prefer the sun. God, can you imagine Pandora _and_ a storm?”

The banter continued for a while, until Rhys glanced at a clock on the wall and hesitantly interjected. "I don't mean to sound like I'm kicking you out or anything, but it's about fifteen minutes til guest areas close up for the night."

"It is getting a bit late. Been a long day of listening to smart people explaining things; I think some rest would do us all well."

"It's true. If you're ready to head out, I could walk you to your room?"

"That would be great. You've been wonderful company." 

Rhys looked away with a small smile. "Thanks, I try my best." He turned and took a couple short steps towards the exit and waited to see that Torao was following before heading out. 

Once they stepped outside, Torao’s Echo implant notified him that he had missed several messages, and they mostly seemed to be inquiring as to his whereabouts. He shot off a quick reply to clarify he was going to turn in for the night, then moved on. 

On the way to the room Hyperion was providing, it seemed that Rhys had been right. People were trickling out of the convention area, some still chattering and others looking tired. Aside from a few tight clusters of people who needed to be asked to move, everyone was so wrapped up in their own business that they didn’t acknowledge Torao or Rhys.. 

Upon reaching the door to Torao’s room, Rhys kept his weight on his back foot like he was prepared to leave, but he didn’t actually go anywhere. Torao opened the door and looked sideways at him. “Would you like to come in?” When there was a pause, he added, “You don’t have to.”

Rhys looked briefly around the hallway, then stepped forward. “Yeah, I would like to.” Torao smiled and led the way in. Immediately upon entering, he was struck with an amazingly generic floral scent and a slightly cooler air temperature.

Thank fucking Christ, this room had no Hyperion yellow in it; instead, the walls were a warm gray up to about hip height and a cream color the rest of the way up. It was shaped like a square with the corners cut off, and was modestly furnished, leaving plenty of space to walk. 

Rhys walked over to the desk against the wall on the left and pulled out the chair to sit on. Torao left his shoes at the door, and, while he was there, then remembered he had left his drink in the room with the glass wall. He changed course to the small fridge next to the desk and crouched down to check if there was anything inside. All he found were a few miscellaneous cans, none of which contained anything interesting. 

Ready for a chance to relax, he planted himself on the bed with his back against the headboard. Once he had settled, he looked at Rhys and noted that he was facing the same direction he had been when he sat down, a thousand-yard stare having settled on his face. Torao left him to it for about a minute before deciding to interrupt. “Something on your mind?”

It took Rhys a moment before he shook off his stupor and replied. “I guess so. I just keep thinking…” He paused again, then blurted out his next sentence. “I want to be like Jack someday. I just don’t know how, you know?”

“Depends what he does that you want to learn.” Torao had met plenty of people who admired Jack to some degree, and it was, he supposed, understandable. He may not have liked the man personally, but he could respect the tight ship he ran, and the willingness to oil the corporate gears with a little blood from time to time. Not everyone had the spine to do it. In fact, as he looked at Rhys’s shoulders slumped forward, he had a pretty solid hunch that the guy would struggle to make it in this business because he wasn’t really the killing type.

“It’s like… Jack always gets what he wants. He just has such a presence. People walk into me in the hallways because they don’t notice me sometimes.” Rhys leaned on the desk and rested his jaw in his hand. 

“I’ve been there.” Torao rolled his head sideways in a gesture of exasperation.

“You? No way.”

“Just today I spoke to Jack for all of fifteen seconds before he made his getaway.”

“But he spoke to you in the first place. Better than a lot of us get.”

“Have you tried walking up to him and saying something?”

Rhys scoffed. “Absolutely not. He’s a busy man and doesn’t exactly enjoy interruptions.”

“Then there’s your problem.” Torao put his arms up behind his head. “Being passive gets you nowhere.”

“What am I supposed to do? Walk up to Handsome Jack, of all people, and tell him how cool he is and how I want to be just like him someday? Like a child would? I’d like to keep my head.”

“Well, don’t say it like that. Look, if us ‘higher ups’ killed every person who annoyed us, no one would have a company. What you’re afraid of isn’t Jack, it’s Jack not taking you seriously.”

“That’s not....” Rhys started to protest, and then trailed off.

“If you want to be like Jack, you _have_ to start standing up for yourself. Not just to defend yourself, but if you don’t advocate for your own interests, no one will.”

“This is starting to feel confrontational.” Rhys didn’t sound truly uncomfortable, but he was beginning to recoil. Torao knew the signs of someone out of their depth, and Rhys was showing all of them.

“So what are you going to do about it?” Torao leaned forward and crossed his arms. “If you feel like you’re being verbally pushed around, are you just going to let me do that?”

“I don’t know what else to do!” Rhys realized after the fact that he had raised his voice, and lowered it again immediately. “I can’t just backtalk to someone powerful enough to have me squelched like a bug.”

“You’re doing it right now. I’m telling you to stand up to me and you’re insisting you can’t. Now do it again, but this time for your own benefit.”

“I-”

“You can even try to strongarm me into shutting up, if you’re feeling brave. The possibilities are endless.” Torao relaxed back again. “You just have to figure out how. Being able to read someone so that you can get in their head is one of the best things you can learn.”

There was a pause, and Rhys looked away, once again picking a wall and staring at it. Torao closed his eyes, figuring that the conversation was over. 

He felt movement along the bed before he heard it, and opened his eyes again to find that Rhys had moved from the desk to sit on the bed. He was making stronger eye contact than he had all night, and it was now that Torao got his first close look at Rhys’s face. He had a bit of a baby face; his long jawline was the only feature that didn’t make the guy look somewhat soft and naive. 

Torao raised one hand to hold loosely between himself and Rhys. He had an inkling of what might be going on, but if he needed to push Rhys away, he was prepared to. “Can I help you?”

Rhys visibly bit the inside of his cheek in hesitation, then before Torao could think, there was a hand gently holding him in place by the jaw and Rhys was in the middle of kissing him, but softly, tentatively, as if something might break if he wasn’t careful. 

So that’s what this was all about. Truth be told, it wasn’t entirely unwelcome. Some days this counted as negotiating. Torao laid one hand where Rhys’s neck met his shoulder and loosely grabbed Rhys’s collar to pull him in.

Once Rhys let go, Torao raised his eyebrows and let his amusement show. “Yeah?”

Rhys shrugged sheepishly. “You said getting you to shut up was an option.”

“There’s a thought. Now let me show you how it’s really done.” 

Rhys raised his eyebrows in turn. “And how would that be?”

Torao shifted his grip to the front of Rhys’s shirt, and Rhys inhaled sharply as his face was pulled mere inches away from Torao’s. The latter spoke in barely a whisper. “You can get away with a bit of manhandling.” To help drive the point home, he dragged Rhys’s hips closer before kissing him again, harder this time.

\------

The room would have been pitch black if not for a faint white glow coming from the bathroom. It was some ungodly hour of the night, and Torao was wide awake. Rhys was fast asleep next to him, his breathing soft and even. 

Torao’s brain was on edge. If there was a way to stop thinking for long enough to sleep like a normal person, he hadn’t figured it out yet. He kept playing the events of the evening over and over again, trying to figure out what it was about the situation that felt so weird. It would have been a good weird if the unfamiliarity didn’t unsettle him.

It wasn’t even the first time he had taken something to the bedroom while trying to get negotiations done. It was a very functional strategy where applicable, but this didn’t feel the same. He and Rhys had hardly spoken about slag, even though the entire reason Torao was here was to talk to people about slag. They had just… talked, like normal people do. 

Torao rolled off of his back and faced Rhys, who had one arm curled tightly under his pillow. The other was loosely slung forward. Neither of them had bothered to put a shirt back on, so the barest touch of skin felt shockingly intimate. 

They had known each other for less than a day, so it felt tacky and dramatic at _best_ to say it had anything to do with being _in love_ , but Torao couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so loved when someone touched him. The longer he thought about it, the more it sunk in that he could hardly remember the last time anyone had bothered to touch him when they weren’t having sex with him right then. All he could come up with was that his mother might have hugged him a few times as a small child.

But someone was touching him right now. Not even as a chore, not as a gesture of pity, none of it. Someone was holding him on purpose, and at the risk of dramatically understating, it was pretty fucking nice.

Torao nestled closer to Rhys’s warm body. A half-conscious hum rumbled in Rhys’s throat, and he put his free arm more securely around Torao’s waist. Torao focused his mind away from rational thought and towards the creature comfort of being held, and his eyes drifted shut easier than ever before.


	2. Chapter 2

This was petty. There was no other reason for it. Torao had done what he was sent to do, and in fact, he had done it spectacularly. Hyperion was poised to agree to a very generous slag deal. Torao had turned the charm up to eleven, made the right ins with the right people, and here he was anyway. He had been sat down in the first room he had entered when he got back to Maliwan HQ, waiting to be told off. Not only was the place dismally gray, the air was positively dripping with Issako’s intentional silence.

Torao groaned. “Can we  _ please _ just get it over with?”

“Get it over with? So you know what this is about?”

“Of course I know what this is about!” Torao flopped down dramatically on the open couch space next to him. “I did what you people wanted, and now you’re going to yell at me about it.”

“Sit up. You’re a grown man.” Issako waited a moment, and when Torao didn’t move, he continued in a harsher tone. “Dad’s had it up to here with this whole… act you do. You can’t keep going to professional functions and acting like an egotistical teenager.”

“Clearly I can. Results keep happening.” Torao made a show of examining his fingernails. He had heard this exact lecture verbatim, and he was getting tired of it.

“Listen, I’ll be the first to admit you’ve done well. We wouldn’t keep sending you otherwise; people do like you. But they don’t respect you.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

Issako stood up and loomed over his brother. “When you go out, you’re not there to have a fun time and mess around. You’re representing Maliwan, and it reflects  _ terribly _ on the rest of us when you do dumb shit. Do you  _ want _ people to forget the respectable image that Mom and Dad spent decades building?”

“You know, you could just let me stay home next time. I’d love it.” Torao looked up and made eye contact. Issako wouldn’t lay a finger on him. He never had, and Torao had a suspicion he was afraid of what would happen if he tried. With that threat out of the way, what else did he have to be afraid of from this whole song-and-dance?

“I would also love it, but Naoko doesn’t get half the results you do, and the rest of us have actual obligations. Unlike someone I know.”

“I could have obligations any time you want. This whole situation is under your control.” Torao stood up. The two were a similar height, so Issako was forced to look at eye level rather than down.

“Why can’t you just stop being difficult? We wouldn’t have to have this talk every single time you come back. Imagine how nice that would be for both of us.”

“Okay, I’m imagining,” Torao deadpanned. Actually, it sounded nightmarish, the thought of going to business events and acting grim like Issako liked to do.

“I get the feeling you’re not really listening to me.” Issako’s tone was beginning to turn threatening. “Do you want Maliwan to succeed?”

“You know, some days I wonder about that too, but I always decide that I must after all, because you said I keep getting results. Maybe you’re the one who doesn’t care so much for it, if you don’t like those results.”

Torao turned and began to walk away without waiting for a response, and close to the door, he was shoved face-first against the nearest wall and held there. Issako easily overpowered his younger brother with his greater body weight, which is to say he passed the low bar of being sturdier than stick-thin.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Torao squirmed, but to no avail. One arm was crushed against the wall, and the other had been twisted behind his back.

“I’m sick to death of you thinking you can just ignore me and act up with no consequences.” Issako’s voice had transformed into a snarl, and his face hovered right next to Torao’s ear. “You pull this again, you won’t know what hit you.”

“And if I tell Dad you’re threatening me?” Torao was losing air as his brother leaned into him, and his speech was becoming gaspy and light.

“Oh, I’ll do worse than threaten.” Issako let up just enough for Torao to free the arm that was against the wall, then put the pressure back on. Torao tried to smack his brother with his newly free arm, but Issako shoved Torao’s elbow up, then, while his hand was in the air, stabbed the muzzle of a Maliwan pistol into it and pinned Torao’s hand to the wall.

Torao’s eyes widened. “No-” 

He was cut off by the gunshot. A screech escaped his throat as the outside edge of his hand lit up with a searing pain. It was, far and away, the worst pain he had ever been in. To Torao’s horror and disgust, as Issako took the pistol away, the pinkie finger on Torao’s hand just fell off from the knuckle, unceremoniously hitting the floor and bouncing once. He was nauseous instantly, on top of already going light-headed. While trying to hold back another scream, he let out a noise that was somewhere between a throaty growl and a choking sound.

“If I have to have this talk with you ever again, same thing happens to the other side.” Issako took his weight off of Torao and threw him away from the wall. Torao stumbled and landed on his hip, but quickly scrambled to his feet. He just stared, clutching his injured hand, not sure if it was over.

Meanwhile, Issako had returned to a normal posture as if nothing had happened. The pistol had disappeared completely, and he smiled. “I’m glad we had this discussion.”

Torao stared.

Issako gestured towards the door. “You can go.”

Not God himself could get Torao out of that room fast enough. On inspecting his (still excruciating) injury while racing down the hallway, Torao found that it wasn’t bleeding. It was already cauterized: incendiary round. Maliwan specialty.

His other fingers seemed okay. Moving the palm of his hand around aggravated the injury, so it was probably out of commission until he could get it looked at. There was no way of telling when that would be, since he wasn’t about to walk around the building and tell everyone that Issako had shot him. Most of the rooms here were soundproofed, so no one would have heard him scream.

With increasing agitation, he thought about what might happen if he tried to say anything. None of his other siblings involved themselves in reprimanding him for behaving badly, but it was clear from the eye-rolling and occasional sarcasm that the entire family agreed that Torao was making a fool of them. They would probably just see this as the natural consequences.

So that was that. Sneak out, see a doctor, get a prosthetic, and always wear gloves around other people. For the rest of his life.

He passed a dark window and stopped across the hall from it to peer at his reflection. He was a complete mess. His hair had started coming out of place during the incident, and his clothes were less than pristine.

On the way to his room to clean himself up, he passed a few of his sisters congregating to watch a show together. Sana called out as he went past. “Dad said he wanted to see you!”

“Great. Thanks.”

“Why do you look like you got mugged-”

“Fuck off.” He squeezed his eyes shut and changed course, bracing for what was sure to come.

Torao trudged into his father’s office with his injured hand shoved in his pocket and pulled a chair up to the desk. Mr Katagawa himself looked up from the papers he had been reading, brows already furrowed in frustration. “You disappeared in the late afternoon every day of the slag conference.”

“Yeah.”

“AND you come into my office looking disheveled. What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Nothing.”

“I’m starting to think you take your responsibilities for a joke. Issako tries over and over again to talk some sense into you, I try to make you take this company seriously, but it never sticks, does it? What haven’t we tried, Torao?”

There was a pause. Torao looked up to make eye contact for the first time in the conversation. “Dad, do you guys hate me?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“It’s just-”

“I’ve given you so many chances and opportunities to succeed, and every time you spit in my face. You have the audacity to ask  _ me _ if I hate  _ you _ ? You wouldn’t be in this room right now if I hated you, but I also suspect you wouldn’t be in here right now if you respected me.” 

“I-”

“You can get out of my office and come back when you’re ready to have a productive conversation.” 

Torao got up and left, dragging his tired body back to his room. He was on the comedown from the adrenaline, and it was all he could do to navigate the halls.

He felt like his world was falling apart. Usually his family was only dismissive and sometimes irritated, never outright hostile. He collapsed onto his bed and, laying catatonically still, he put a call through to his mother with his Echo implant.

“Yes?” The neutral tone to his mother’s voice was grating. He had hoped that anyone would be happy to hear from him, but that hope was quickly running out.

Torao was quiet for a few seconds. Out of everything he wanted to say, all he actually managed was, “I talked to Dad just now.”

“And what did he say?”

“He doesn’t think I’m taking my responsibilities seriously.”

“Well…” His mother paused, but it was immediately clear from her tone that she agreed. “You can see how he might think that, don’t you?”

Torao was silent. His mother prompted him to speak, to at least acknowledge he was still there, and he didn’t. He eventually hung up and kept lying there.

There were plenty of things he would have liked to do. Throw something, scream, punch the wall until his knuckles were reduced to a bloody pulp, cry. He did none of those things. Instead he lay still, wishing his brain would just stop functioning on the spot and someone would find him already cold. If only he walked around with a gun like Issako.

Acting like he did at events was the only real fun he had. He made sure it always served his purposes, but nothing was good enough. It never would be. However much he cared about Maliwan, it would never be enough for anyone. He served Maliwan faithfully, and Maliwan always asked more. Nothing short of numbness and an empty life on his part would be enough. Dress right, straighten his back, remember not to smile too much.

Issako didn’t deserve to inherit Maliwan. Issako had friends, a wife, a whole life to lean back on when he needed the mental fortitude to terrorize his youngest brother. Torao had nothing. 

Well, for a moment in time, he had had one thing.

He thought about what the future would look like, if he could have it any way he wanted. He could exact some kind of fitting revenge, make Issako pay no matter the cost, and then run straight to Rhys. Just the thought of it was disgustingly nice. That safe feeling he got sleeping next to Rhys was an intoxicating concept right now. It was a child’s fantasy, to be sure: one where the underdog finally gets their way, and the end is tied up in a nice, neat bow. 

It was all he had. Wait to pounce. Succeed or die.


	3. Chapter 3

“Excellent work, Tyreen. Always a pleasure.”

“Hey, no sweat. If you’ve got any more, just give me a call.” She flashed two peace signs, and, her business here concluded, Tyreen vanished in a bright flash of fire. The only sign she’d been here was a dark scuff on the floor where she had just been standing, and, well...

Torao downed the rest of his drink and set the glass aside before turning to look at what was left of his siblings. The frozen statues had purple spikes splitting each of them open across the body like a ravine, and their faces were twisted into expressions of mortal agony. Husks, Tyreen had called them. Torao reached out and lightly touched the nearest one, and dust flaked off of the cheek. Fragile, apparently.

In their own way, they were kind of beautiful. The colors were controlled and sophisticated. The purple crystals resembled eridium, but they weren’t quite as opaque. It might have been worth it to take a few and use them for decoration.

Issako was easy to spot among the group, since he was the tallest. His face was still there, but it wasn’t properly human; his skin had turned to some kind of dark gray stone, so his lips and nose had been stripped of shape. His teeth were still there, bared in the scream he’d wasted his last breath on. His eyes had turned solid black and glassy.

Torao put his fist through the husk’s chest, and the whole thing disintegrated into stony pieces and a pile of sparkling dust. Some of the pieces hit the adjacent husks and knocked off parts of them as well. The dust would probably be a pain to clean out of the carpeted floor, but that wasn’t Torao’s problem.

How appropriate that the Zanara was their final resting place. Torao’s turf.

On second thought, all of Maliwan was his turf now. Nothing -- or rather, no one -- was left between him and rightfully ascending to power, except--

With a start, Torao remembered Naoko hadn’t been here. Chances were, if he was fast, he could catch her before she found a way off the ship. At a brisk jog, he left the room and locked the doors behind himself. 

“Anyone seen Naoko?” The scant few employees milling around in the hallway outside shook their heads. “Really? No one?”

“No sign of her, sir. We thought she was with you.”

“I thought she was too.”

One of the maintenance workers popped his head in from a connecting hallway. “What was the loud noise a few minutes ago?”

“I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

“I don’t mean to overstep, sir, but I wouldn’t want any harm to come to-” The man’s head split open, sending blood and brain across the wall and floor around him. Torao hovered a hand near the muzzle of his pistol to ensure it wasn’t hot before putting it away. One of the perks of high-tech Maliwan weapons. 

All of the surviving employees were frozen in fear. Torao glanced up at them. “Can one of you do me a favor and clean that up? I have something to attend to.” He smiled before adding, “Thanks.” A couple people nodded and quickly got to work, keeping their eyes down.

Torao left out a hallway opposite the one having a body removed from it, slowing from a jog to a walk. He had mused earlier that Naoko might be in the bathroom, and if that was true, then she was likely somewhere in this direction. 

After a moment, he heard hurried footsteps and broke into a sprint to catch up with the source. The chase went on for about thirty seconds before Torao finally turned a corner and a grin spread across his face. “There you are.”

Naoko was cornered in the room with a Fast Travel station, trying to input a location. It seemed almost poetic, the way her face was lit up by the machine, exposing her desperate expression. She turned around briefly to see that Torao was really there, then turned back around and typed faster. 

Torao walked up and grabbed her by the back of her collar, then threw her away from the station. She landed hard on her side with a grunt, and Torao stepped over her. She looked up warily. “What did you do to them?”

“Tell you what, sis, you’ll see them in a moment and they can tell you all about it.” Torao’s pistol reappeared in his hand, and he closed one eye for a moment to aim in the middle of Naoko’s forehead. “Tell them I said hi, will you?”

“No. Go to hell.” Naoko tried to squirm away, and Torao flicked his aim sideways to fire a warning shot next to her. The elemental round flashed in the low light. She froze in place.

“Now, that’s not very nice. Do you want this to be quick or not?” Naoko didn’t answer. Torao aimed lower, towards her belly instead of her head. “What do you think? Through the brain or bleed out on the floor? It’s up to you.”

Naoko shot one leg up from the floor and kicked Torao in the dick.

Torao didn’t even think to shoot her before crumpling to the floor. Naoko was immediately on her feet, and she dove for the Fast Travel station. With Torao out of commission, she reached it easily, hit the button, and disappeared.

It was a couple minutes before Torao recovered, at which point he climbed to a standing position. The readout on the Fast Travel said that Naoko had gone somewhere in the Meridian on Promethea. Following her right now was no longer an option, since she would be nearly impossible to find, even with only a few minutes of a head start.

However, it wasn’t a complete loss just yet. The other important thing in the Meridian was Atlas HQ, perched nicely in the metroplex. Naoko could stay on the radar, but for Torao to finally turn his sights to the real prize would be a treat indeed. Rhys had done a wonderful job revitalizing the old powerhouse, and getting him to agree to a deal should be no problem, considering the nervous young man Torao remembered meeting on Helios.

But first, a little housekeeping.

Torao sent an Echo message through to his immediate inferiors. Before recording it, he took a moment to prepare his best imitation of someone who was very upset. “I need backup on the Zanara. There’s been a terrible accident.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Get over it, Katagawa!” Rhys’s raised voice over the Echo channel only amplified the murderous rage blooming through Torao’s body. “You can’t hold the city, the Key fragment’s slipped through your fingers, and now you’re losing your grasp on reality! That’s  _ three _ hand things right there! You can’t get past my defense turrets!”

Torao was boiling over. He wasn’t sure where Tyreen had gotten a fully functional copy of Zer0’s weird catsuit, but considering the way things had been going, between the Zanara and now Rhys waltzing around like this was over, he wasn’t about to complain. Already, the cloaking module had allowed him to approach this far.

From his perch on the outer wall of Atlas campus, Torao could see the team of Vault Hunters calmly making their way in. The short one seemed on high alert, but none of them were outwardly distressed. Time for that to change.

“Maybe I can’t.” Torao used his Echo implant to call down an airstrike, in anticipation of the few seconds it would take to land. “But your friend Zer0 can.” There was a brief pause, and then an explosion rocked the area as the airstrike landed on one of the rooms built into the wall.

There was screaming, which was quickly overshadowed by gunfire as Maliwan troops started to land in the area. Torao couldn’t help but grin as Rhys’s wavering confidence became audible. “That was the defense command center. Oh no…”

Torao got moving. Maliwan troops were spreading into the semicircular courtyard below, and both the Vault Hunters and the Atlas soldiers milling around had leapt into action to push them back. Torao had largely tuned out Rhys’s Echo chatter with the Vault Hunters, but did hear him shout, “Where the  _ hell _ is Zero?”

Once Torao had reached the platform above the courtyard, he stood and watched the fight for a moment, still cloaked to avoid being spotted just yet. The Vault Hunters were slowly making their way through the fray, with the Siren managing to break away from the crowd and lead her teammates out. Before continuing, Torao got back in the Echo channel. “Your best bud Zer0 stabbed you in the back!” His voice lowered to a growl. “How’s it feel,  _ Rhys _ ?” 

“Shut up, Katagawa! Zer0 would never betray me.” While Rhys was technically correct, it was staggering how stubborn he could be. If he really wouldn’t turn on Zer0, then this would be easier than expected. 

The Vault Hunters were getting into the perimeter access, and Torao figured it was worthwhile to check that they would be stalled a little on the way. He headed to his left and found a few nullhounds in the small command room, dutifully keeping the system offline.

“Rhys.” A robotic voice came across the Echo channel. Probably that robot Vault hunter with the dirty coat and the animal running around. Torao could hear footsteps from a small group of people down the hall, and heard the next part in physical space as well as over Echo. “Zer0 is hunting down your soldiers.”

“No! No, no, no-no-no, Zer0’s loyalty is not in question.” Rhys was beginning to sound panicked. The Vault Hunters were appearing around a corner from the perimeter wall access, and Torao uncloaked for just a moment while Rhys continued talking. “Wherever he is, I’m sure he has a good reason.  _ You _ just focus on kicking out Maliwan!” 

The Vault Hunter with a beard rushed forward, hoping to catch Torao. The latter waited calmly, and just as the Vault Hunter turned the corner, he cloaked again and left the nullhounds in the area to run a distraction. As he took off for the main Atlas building, he could hear the sound of shields breaking behind him.

While entering the building, all of the turrets came back online, signaled by a whole fucking lot more noise than a moment ago. Torao cursed under his breath and turned to see Maliwan ships getting blown out of the air, one after another. No good. Rhys was crowing over the Echo channel, but Torao barely heard him. Soon enough he wouldn’t have a throat to brag with.

There was an Atlas soldier trying to rally inside the building. Torao let the nearby Maliwan troops provide some cover fire that pushed the soldier behind cover, then crept around to his exposed side while the man shouted a status report to Rhys. “They’re in the lobby! We’re going to hold them off from-” Torao uncloaked and drew his sword in one motion, and the Atlas soldier looked relieved to see him for just a moment. Nothing about Torao’s stride or indifference to the Maliwan forces nearby seemed to tip him off. “Zer0? What are you-” 

It was hard for him to continue talking with a puncture wound through his lungs. 

No more time to lose. Torao ignored Rhys whining about Zer0 and recloaked, heading for the elevator in the middle of the lobby. The Vault Hunters were coming, mowing down countless Maliwan men as they went.

“Rhys, I don’t even want Atlas anymore.” Torao stepped into the elevator and pressed the button. “Your brand is over. I’ll make more profit selling your employees’ organs than your guns.”

“Damn you, Katagawa! My brand!” Torao smiled at Rhys’s helpless protest, and used the glass sides of the elevator to watch the Vault Hunters struggle to keep up. Torao’s men had closed ranks behind him, and it was nice to watch that band of losers Rhys liked so much struggle a little.

It seemed like the elevator couldn’t be disabled, but it was slower than it should be. Out the window, Torao could see the Vault Hunters race past below him, towards the rear courtyard where a Maliwan command ship was stationed. The structure of the elevator meant that he couldn’t see what was happening. He was hardly listening to the Echo chatter, but after enough time had passed, a familiar explosion sounded outside: those clowns had used the Skywell laser  _ again _ . Torao wasn’t entirely sure how they had pulled that off, and he assumed he could have found out by paying more attention, but ultimately, he didn’t care. He was about to get what he came for.

Rhys was in tears over Echo. “Thank you, Vault Hunters. Atlas is… is safe.” Torao giggled quietly. “Now I just, ah, have to find Zer0.”

“Oh, don’t worry about Zer0, Rhys.” Torao was giddy with anticipation. “He’ll find you.”

Torao stepped out of the elevator as Rhys began to bluster through a defense for his friend. “Your mind games won’t work, Katagawa! Zer0’s on my side.” Torao uncloaked and kept a firm stride down the hallway. Rhys, standing in the section of hallway surrounded by fish tanks, turned around and opened his arms wide in a ‘welcome’ gesture. “Oh, see? He just walked in. I’m looking at him right now. Zer0, man, everyone’s just completely lost their-”

Rhys stopped talking as Torao drew his sword. As Torao kept walking forward at the same unwavering pace, Rhys started to scuttle backwards.

“What? Zer0, what are you doing? No, no no no-” Rhys’s voice rose to a wail, and he was forced to turn around to get away. Once in the main, open room of his office, Rhys took a sharp turn to the left and entered a side room. The door closed quickly behind him, and the light went red. Locked.

Through the wall, Torao could hear Rhys trying to tell the Vault Hunters that Zer0 was trying to kill him. What a joke. Waiting outside the door, Torao was just itching to draw some blood.

He wandered a short distance away so he could speak over Echo without Rhys hearing him. “You just don’t get it, do you, Rhys?” While he talked, he found himself pacing and gesticulating. He had been so eager, and now that Rhys was shut away, he had to  _ wait _ to kill him, and it was driving him crazy. “This whole war could have been nice and quick. I move in, take Promethea, and make Atlas a subsidiary of Maliwan. Then I make  _ you _ Vice President of Beach Drinks. We all win. That’s how it works! That’s how it’s  _ always worked _ .”

There was some movement in the room that Rhys had locked himself in, and Torao turned to watch the door, but didn’t come closer, because if Rhys wasn’t coming out of there, he wasn’t done talking yet. His voice softened as he continued. “You were special, Rhys. I saw that. You brought this bottom-shelf company back from the dead! With you in the family we could have turned Maliwan into a universal monopoly.” He started pacing again without thinking. “You and me! Brothers! Selling the only weapons anyone would ever need in all six galaxies!”

Torao’s voice turned cold, and he clenched his fists. “But I reached out my hand, and you spat in it, Rhys. So now you’re not family. You’re just the competition.”

The door unlocked and opened. Rhys bolted for his desk. Torao dove to cut him off, but pacing while he talked had taken him too far away, and Rhys managed to hit a button on the desk. The whole thing slid backwards, and underneath was a chute that Rhys jumped into and promptly tumbled down. Torao followed, except, unlike Rhys, feet first.

He was excited all over again, now that he was so close. Once upon a time, Rhys had been part of his idea of a happy ending, but the bastard had ruined it, had obstructed Torao at every turn, and now he was going to pay for it. 

At the bottom of the chute was a square platform, enclosed by a short wall and lots of piping. It seemed more like it was for maintenance to use than Rhys, but if this was where he wanted to die, then that was just fine.

Rhys had recovered enough from the fall to get up and run away, but almost immediately stumbled and fell. Torao grinned, and strode forward with his sword raised to strike. Rhys scooted backwards across the ground, holding up one hand as if it would protect him. “Zer0, come on man, I thought we were friends…”

Torao went to swing, already envisioning how cleanly he could slice Rhys straight down the middle. Except his sword stopped short. Another one just like it had been held horizontally in front, shielding Rhys. Zer0, that sneaky little--

Clearly this was going nowhere until Zer0 was taken care of, so Torao turned his attention and swung again. Zer0 deftly blocked or dodged every attack Torao threw at him, and with one sweeping blow knocked off Torao’s helmet. The impact slammed Torao’s cheekbone into the helmet as it came off, and as he staggered sideways with the impact, he reached up to touch the spot that hurt. It seemed unhurt, and he was ready to pay the blow back ten times over.

Recovering quickly, he strode back towards Rhys, but Zer0 took him by the hand and disappeared both of them with the cloaking technology in his suit. He was beginning to get frustrated, and would have tried to track the two down, but based off the feet hitting the ground behind him, Torao had bigger problems. 

With a loud electronic sound, Torao made use of the short-distance teleport feature of his suit to get up on the high ground, and cast decoys to nearby perches to distract while he peered down the scope of his sniper rifle.

The problem with the situation was that the Vault Hunters were a well-oiled machine. Not only were there four of them, but they were clearly used to working together. The siren and the man with the beard were especially difficult, as they came in with an assist far too often for Torao to effectively counter.

The fight lasted a while, but Torao was losing, and it was getting very clear. As soon as one of the Vault Hunters went down, another picked them back up. Torao grit his teeth. As a hail-mary, he came down to the flat ground and tried to take the Vault Hunters in close combat, and for it received a bullet directly in the part of his suit that controlled short-distance teleport, which caused the system to go haywire, glitching him around the area a couple times a second.

The visual effect of warping around several times in a short distance was nauseating, and the energy released by the frequent activation was beginning to burn. When the module finally gave out, it basically exploded, the force of which knocked Torao backwards into a wall. He collapsed, his entire body aching and the skin around what was left of the teleportation module burning. 

A doorway nearby opened up with Rhys and Zero standing inside. Torao couldn’t quite see straight, or clearly hear what was being said between them and the Vault Hunters. He tasted blood. Every move, even to breathe, hurt.

This was a hell of a place to die, after it all. 


	5. Chapter 5

Rhys Strongfork was 29, thankful to be alive, and he didn’t think he had ever been more tired in his life.

He had just sent the Vault Hunters away with the Key fragment he had promised them, and was now realizing that he was going to have to contend with the corpse outside. Rhys had never been much of a fighting man himself, and to him this was a grisly scene. Yes, Katagawa HAD just spent a fair amount of time trying to kill him, but looking at his lifeless body was a different story. It was almost sad.

Rhys glanced at Zer0, but didn’t say anything. He walked out the doorway feigning confidence, but became more hesitant the closer he got to Katagawa. After getting just within arm’s reach, he crouched down. Zer0 stayed next to Rhys but a little behind. “The tyrant is dead, but his forces remain here. I will take my leave.”

“Yeah! Yeah. Feel free to head out. You know where to find me.” Rhys gave a little wave as Zer0 walked away, then turned back to the matter at hand, settling into a sitting position. 

He didn’t have the capacity to feel full-blown pity right now, after the whole ‘attempted murder’ thing, but he did feel some kind of bad. Katagawa might have been a despicable person by all accounts, but some part of Rhys couldn’t help but respect the man’s confidence, at least when he  _ wasn’t _ trying to take over Atlas and raze the metroplex to the ground.

He reached out and rested his fingertips on Katagawa’s cheek, which was still warm. His face wasn’t peaceful like Rhys had seen it before, eight long years ago on Helios. It was scrunched up in pain, and bruised in a couple places. 

Katagawa’s throat convulsed, and he made a noise like he was choking. Blood welled at his lips in irregular intervals as his body tried to clear his airway.

Wait. He wasn’t dead?

At first Rhys stood up and got ready to make another escape. However, within seconds it was clear that that wouldn’t be necessary. Katagawa was alive, but barely so. He wasn’t even conscious. If anything, he seemed to be actively dying.

Damn it.

This kind of situation was exactly what he wanted to avoid. As much as he wanted to lay this whole situation to rest, he knew it was going to be some whole moral dilemma. Was sitting here and watching him die the same thing as if Rhys had pulled the trigger himself? If he was dying, would it be better to put him out of his misery instead of letting him suffer?

Rhys answered none of these questions he was thinking of, and barely even started to argue with himself as to what the answers might be. With very little thought involved, he extracted one of Anshin’s weird med-hypos from a pocket inside his vest. He didn’t trust these things as far as he could throw them. They healed too fast, and Rhys had heard a couple horror stories of that speed meaning that things healed completely wrong, but it might just do enough.

Katagawa’s suit was basically identical to Zer0’s, which meant that Rhys knew just enough about it to get to some of the muscles in Katagawa’s shoulder and sink the needle into him. After giving the red mystery substance a moment to sink in, Katagawa managed an actual cough, spraying blood across the ground. His breathing got a little stronger, and Rhys sat back, turning his brain on again.

Holy shit, what had he just done? He was going to get himself killed trying to save Katagawa’s life. The Vault Hunters had taken him down for a good reason, and now Rhys had gone and started undoing their hard work. But now that Katagawa was stabilizing, he couldn’t just  _ leave _ him out here. Him being alive was bad news, but him being alive and on the loose with his gear was even worse news. 

Think, think, think. There had to be something that could be done. The bastard was going to have to stay at Atlas. Anywhere else and there’s no telling what he’d do. But it couldn’t be too public, or a lot of Atlas people would be justifiably upset. It had to be somewhere he had a chance of Zer0 not finding out about- scratch that, there’s nothing Zer0 couldn’t find out if he wanted to. Damn it, what was Zer0 going to think about this?

Okay, the first step was to take him inside. Being out in the open wasn’t helpful. Rhys rolled Katagawa onto his back, then slid his arms underneath him at the shoulders and knees and tried to lift. Katagawa was skinny, but he was still a grown man, and Rhys struggled for a moment before giving up. He would almost definitely drop Katagawa if he kept going. Okay, different approach.

What about lifting with his legs? Rhys sunk into a crouch and grabbed Katagawa around the waist and tried to stand up. This worked, and he was able to fully extend his legs, but Katagawa’s heels were still dragging on the ground and the weight was still too far off center for Rhys to move much. He braced for a moment, then tried to hoist Katagawa up on one shoulder. This worked, but almost threw Rhys off balance. After a couple of staggering steps, he righted himself. He didn’t feel like he could support this weight for long, though, so he headed back inside and back up towards his office.

There was a storage room connected to his office via the balcony that he might be able to refashion into a contained living space with a little bit of legwork. Atlas didn’t have any kind of real holding area, and even if they did, Rhys wasn’t convinced it would be a good setup under the very stupid circumstances.

He put Katagawa down on one of the couches in his office, then opened the storage room and got to work moving things around. Most of this room was empty, and the contents were mostly boxes of paperwork, poorly organized by none other than Rhys himself. These were all moved into the main room of the office. 

Once the room had been emptied, Rhys came back to Katagawa and once again hefted him around, this time into the room. He placed him in a sitting position against the wall furthest from the door, and then took a moment to think about what came next.

Katagawa couldn’t keep his gear. Too dangerous, and too likely to get away. Rhys knew from Zer0 how a couple of pieces moved, but he didn’t have the slightest idea how to go about taking it off entirely. 

There was one thing he could do, for starters. Rhys exited the room and retrieved a large, thin blanket he kept in his office, then brought it back to Katagawa. Hopefully this suit wasn’t the only thing Katagawa had been wearing, but just in case, this was something to cover up with until Rhys could find some clothes for him to wear.

He threw the blanket over Katagawa’s lower body and then sat down next to him to get to work on taking his gear away. The collar piece was easily removed after being unlocked with a small, concealed sensor at the back. The main body of the suit seemed to be a catsuit with most pieces directly attached, and a couple of loose pieces that looked separate. The shield piece on one shoulder looked loose enough that it should have come off, but Rhys couldn’t figure out how to detach it. Both forearm braces were easy to remove after finding where the straps connected.

Good god, even knowing how all of this worked, it must have taken Zer0 a full half hour to get ready in the morning. Unless he just slept in it. Or unless he didn’t sleep. Knowing Zer0, all of the options were equally possible. 

The harness for the sword sheath proved more difficult. It didn’t seem to disconnect anywhere, and after a few minutes of fighting with it, Rhys had to hold Katagawa’s arms up and slide the whole thing off over his head. 

That seemed to be all the detachable parts on the upper body. With the collar piece gone, it was clearer that the seam down the front of the suit was a zipper. Undoing it caused the suit to slump open, and as it did so, Rhys breathed a sigh of relief. Katagawa had put on a thin, stretchy underlayer that looked a bit like a long-sleeve swim shirt. Nudity was avoidable. 

Armed with the knowledge that this would be slightly less awkward than anticipated, Rhys moved the blanket and got to work on the lower body. The upper body being open and loose helped a lot, so all Rhys really had to do was take off the parts around the knee and shins and the rest was easy to pull off like normal clothes. 

Rhys stood up and took a deep breath. One thing down. Many more to go. Another one to do sooner rather than later would probably be to clean this poor bastard up. His face was still covered in his own blood, and certain parts of his underlayer were burned through to the skin. There was a particularly bad burn on the right side of his waist. The injuries Rhys could see were easy to fix, but he didn’t have anything to fix them with. 

He picked up the pile of Katagawa’s gear and took it with him as he left the room and locked it. Katagawa’s suit joined the pile of boxes, all of which would take a lot of explaining if anyone came in. He then headed for the elevator to take a trip to the infirmary. 

The place was busy patching up the survivors of the Maliwan assault. Thankfully, in spite of the many casualties, many more seemed in good shape, and more were leaving than entering by now. 

One of the doctors noticed Rhys come in and made a beeline for him. “I’m glad to see you’re safe. Are you hurt at all?”

“I’m good, I’m good, thank you though.” Rhys braced himself to recite his prepared excuse. “I was thinking, though, in case we, uh, ever have another  _ incident _ like this again, which I hope we don’t, do- do we have any first aid kits or anything like that I could keep in my office? It occurred to me I don’t have one.”

“Yeah, definitely.” The doctor grabbed a box with a handle from a nearby shelf and handed it to Rhys. “This should cover you for the basics. The sticker on the back says what’s inside.”

“Thanks so much. Keep up the good work in here.” Rhys hurried away without waiting for a response. 

Upon arriving back in Katagawa’s room, Rhys found him still out cold. Flipping over the box he had been given, Rhys examined the list of contents. Gauze, bandages, antibacterial stuff, and the thing he was looking for: topical biogel. It didn’t work nearly as fast as whatever the hell was in Anshin’s syringes, but it was much more reliable for surface wounds like Katagawa was covered in. 

Rhys extracted the bottle of biogel from the kit and sat down next to Katagawa again. This stuff smelled kinda gross and alcohol-y, which Rhys was reminded of as he opened the bottle. He got to work and, using his fingers, coated all the injuries he could see, including the burns.

Once that was done, he pulled a couple of wipes out of the first aid kit and started to clean the blood off Katagawa’s face. After about ten seconds of this, Katagawa finally began to stir. 

Rhys startled a little, but was determined to maintain his composure. He continued what he was doing, this time using his other hand to keep Katagawa’s head tilted in the direction he wanted. “Can you hear me?”

Katagawa’s eyes fluttered about halfway open as he gave what sounded like an affirmative grunt. He tried to shift around, and only managed to move weakly.

“Knock it off. Sit still for me.” Rhys tipped Katagawa’s head up to reach the underside of his chin. “How do you feel?”

“Like I got hit by a train.” Katagawa’s voice was reduced to a groan, and he twisted away from Rhys to cough a couple times. Thankfully, he was no longer coughing up blood. “Where am I?”

“Atlas.”

“Why?” Katagawa sounded shockingly irritated for a man whose life had just been saved.

“You’re the one who came here, you tell me. I wanted you to stay the hell out. You’re responsible for a lot of dead bodies today.”

“Then why did you let me live?” He jerked his head away from Rhys and glared at him. 

“I don’t know, alright?” Rhys snapped. “Either way, you’re alive, and now both of us have to deal with it. I already told you to sit still, I’m not going to say it again.”

Katagawa complied this time, resting back against the wall with his brows furrowed like a sulking teenager. Both of them were silent for a while, and Rhys finished wiping up the blood. As he was gathering things up to leave, Katagawa piped back up. “Why am I covered in goop?”

“It’s to help you heal faster. Don’t wipe it off.” Rhys stood up and turned to leave, taking the first aid kit with him. “I’ll be back to get you situated by the end of the day, since you’ll be staying here for a while.”

“What about Maliwan? You can’t just-”

“They’ll go on without you.” Rhys was quickly getting sick of arguing, and his tone was becoming harsh. “It’s clear that being in charge of Maliwan wasn’t going to work, since you came here and tried to kill me. You’re under custody of the Atlas corporation until further notice, and above all, you are  _ not _ going to be part of Maliwan, now or ever. Are we clear?”

Katagawa didn’t respond. He maintained eye contact for a moment, glaring the whole time, then turned his back. Rhys left and locked the door. 

What was he doing? It hit Rhys all over again that he was basically locking a murderer in a closet in his room. There were so many ways this could go terribly wrong, and he was still going to have to manage the fallout when Zer0 inevitably found out. All of this could have been avoided if he had just let Katagawa bleed to death outside. 

If he were a different person, he could walk in there right now and put a bullet through the bastard’s head. But he wasn’t the killing type. He would never be able to live with himself. This was a disaster. He couldn’t even ask Zero to do the killing for him, since he would feel equally as bad.

Rhys put the first aid kit in a desk drawer and got to work moving the boxes into a different room. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that he didn’t want Katagawa dead  _ at all _ . If he just dropped dead for no particular reason, Rhys wouldn’t feel as guilty as he would if he killed him, but he would still be upset.

There was no good reason for it. Katagawa wasn’t the person he used to be. Or, Rhys considered with a sinking feeling, the version of him that was on Helios at that conference was completely fabricated. Maybe he was awful by nature, and there was no point trying to reason with him.

One way to find out. Rhys sighed and picked up another box.


	6. Chapter 6

“Wait, so you just knew? I mean, of course you did, you’re great at sneaking around, I don’t mean to doubt you, I just- why didn’t you say anything? It’s been like two weeks.” 

Zer0 cocked his head. “No good reason to. If he stays contained nearby, he’s easy to watch.”

“So you’re not worried or upset or anything?”

“I suppose not.” Zer0’s even tone always had a soothing effect on Rhys.

“Man, you’re less mad than I was at myself for this whole mess. You’ve got the patience of a saint.”

“What’s been done is done. I won’t say I understand. He should stay afraid.”

“Yeah, I’ll make sure to call you if he gets out of hand. So far he hasn’t, though.” Rhys started pacing. “I think he knows when he’s beaten, but he’s still been a huge jerk about it the whole time. At this rate I don’t know if I can ever let him out into the world. Did I tell you it’s so good to have someone to talk to about this? It’s been killing me.”

Zer0 made an amused “hmm” sound.

“Maliwan got in touch the other day to tell me that one of his siblings survived and has stepped in to take over for him. She said something about how under normal circumstances she would have to retaliate over us taking out the head of Maliwan, but considering who it was, she was going to let it slide.”

“Naoko.”

“You know her?”

“In a way.”

“Cool. But yeah, I just don’t know what I’m gonna do with this idiot. He’s not working with me at all. I don’t want to put cameras in his room, because that would piss him off more, but I’m starting to get desperate. Like, maybe he does something on his own that will clue me in?”

“I already know.”

“What, you’ve been watching him?”

“He doesn’t do much. He looks more machine than man, blank and deathly still.”

“That’s weird. Maybe he’s just bored? I gave him some books a few days ago, and some paper and pens, but I’ll see if I can think of anything else.”

“He doesn’t use them, they sit right where you left them. The-” Zer0 stopped and turned his head slightly as if he had heard something. “Lorelei needs help. Maliwan has yet to leave. We are still fighting.” 

He turned and left at a run, and Rhys waved at his back as he left. “See you around. Stay safe and all that.”

Rhys walked around his desk and sat down, and put his head in his hands. He was really trying his best. Running a company was a full time job, and trying to wrangle Katagawa on top of that was tiring, to say the least. Some days it really felt like no progress was being made at all; Katagawa just kept being obstinate, insisting that this wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Rhys wanted to shout at him and tell him that this preoccupation with how things ‘should’ have been was a real pain in the ass, but he knew it wouldn’t help. 

The worst days were the ones Katagawa wouldn’t talk at all. Zer0’s assessment of what Katagawa did on his own time was believable, because some days Rhys would try to strike up a conversation with Katagawa, and he would just sit there and look at Rhys. 

Between the various communication problems happening here, it was unclear what was going on in Katagawa’s head. Rhys could hope as much as he wanted that the dumbass was maybe starting to realize that he’d done some terrible things, but there was no proving it, and sometimes he felt like the evidence pointed to the exact opposite, especially on the days Katagawa was being actively standoffish.

For the millionth time, Rhys asked himself what he was doing, and he still had no answers.


	7. Chapter 7

Rhys threw his suit jacket onto the nearest chair and sighed deeply. It had been a long day, full of the kind of boring business stuff that made him feel like his brain was leaking out his ears after the first few hours. At least it was over now.

He would have liked nothing more than to go to bed right away, but he grudgingly decided that he would check on Katagawa before bed like he had been doing every day. It had been months with little change, and he was starting to consider just giving up. He had tried to bring in a few trusted visitors, gave him things to do with his time, talked to him, and nothing worked. Katagawa wasn’t interested, it seemed.

Rhys knocked on the door and leaned close to listen for a response. “It’s Rhys, can I come in?”

He didn’t get a response, which was strange. Katagawa never slept this early, and there was no way he hadn’t heard. Rhys knocked again. “Hello?”

Again, nothing. Something wasn’t right. Katagawa was stubborn, but usually he made at least some kind of noise to acknowledge Rhys was there.

Rhys opened the door and stopped in his tracks. The room was a mess. Anything that could be easily moved or thrown was strewn across the floor. Certain sections of the wall were spattered with small streaks of blood, and in one of the corners away from the door was Katagawa, curled up as tightly as he could be. 

“Jesus Christ, what happened in here?” Rhys rushed over and crouched next to him, trying to figure out where the blood came from. “Was someone here? Did someone hurt you?”

Katagawa let out a muffled sound that sounded like “no,” and refused to uncurl. Since arriving at Atlas, he had stopped gelling his hair into his signature pompadour, even though Rhys had offered him the means to do so, and his hair was hanging limply around his face, hiding it from view.

Rhys took his feet out from under himself and sat down, gently resting one hand on Katagawa’s nearest shoulder. “I promise I’m not mad. I just want to know what happened. I want you to be safe.”

“Don’t touch me.” Katagawa recoiled from Rhys’s hand.

“Right. Sorry. Are you alright?”

There was no response for a while, but after long enough, Katagawa extracted one of his arms from its position wrapped around his belly and showed it to Rhys. His knuckles were bloodied and torn up, and, more upsettingly, he seemed to be missing his pinkie finger. The side of his hand didn’t look like the missing finger was new, though; in fact, it looked remarkably well-healed.

This didn’t make sense. Rhys had seen this guy many times over the past few months, and he seemed to have all of his fingers. After thinking about it for a moment, Rhys realized he hadn’t seen Katagawa’s hands without gloves in years. He could verify firsthand that Katagawa had five fingers back on Helios. Maybe something had changed since then, but the gloves he had worn since had five fingers too, and they never had a loose spot. 

Rhys went to take Katagawa’s hand and turn it over, look more closely to see how badly he was hurt, but thought better of it. When Rhys spoke again, his voice was barely a whisper. “Who did this to you?”

“He’s dead.” Katagawa moved his head just enough to be heard. His voice was rough and raspy as if worn out with use.

“Good.” 

“When I killed them…” Katagawa’s voice had taken on a certain monotone quality that Rhys had never heard him use before. “I thought it was about Maliwan. I wanted to be in charge. But it was about him. The rest of them didn’t matter.”

Rhys was stunned into silence for a moment. He could only think of one notable group of people Katagawa had killed to be in charge of Maliwan. “Your brother did this to you?”

Katagawa didn’t respond, but he was clearly getting worked up again thinking about it. He lifted his head a little more, and it was immediately clear that he had been crying for a while. His eyes and cheeks were flushed red, his nose was running, and his eyes were still watery. The hand he had shown to Rhys tried to curl into a fist, but that aggravated the open wounds on his knuckles and his hand flinched open again.

“He ruined me. I did whatever it took to make him pay, and it turned me into a fucking monster.” Katagawa’s voice was starting to shake, and as he went on it slowly transformed to an aggravated wail. “I wish the Vault Hunters killed me. I want to die. I’ve got nothing left.”

“You’ve got me.” Rhys kept his voice low and soft, desperately hoping he could wind Katagawa down before he freaked out again, for both their sakes.

“I tried to kill you.”

“Okay, you did do that, but I still nursed you back to health afterwards.” A tear streaked down Katagawa’s cheek. Damn it, this wasn’t working well enough. “I really do want you to be safe and healthy, I just want to help you do that differently than you’ve been doing it on your own.”

“No you don’t. No one cared all this time, why would it be different now?”

Rhys took a deep breath. “Listen, I get that it’s hard for you to trust me right now. I want to help you, but I need you to meet me halfway and believe that I care enough to do it. Can you try to do that?”

Katagawa was quiet for a moment, a few more individual tears running down his face. His next action was to throw himself at Rhys, wrapping both arms around his torso and grasping his shirt with both hands. He was shivering. It was impossible to tell if it was from temperature or emotions running high. Rhys was knocked back slightly by the impact, and noted that contact was apparently okay if Katagawa started it.

Among the mess on the floor was the blanket that Rhys had brought in here while taking away Katagawa’s gear. He could barely reach a corner of it, but managed to grab it, then throw it over both of them. 

“Some days I wish he shot me in the head instead of the hands.” Katagawa’s voice had reduced to a murmur against Rhys’s chest. “None of this would have happened.”

One of Rhys’s arms went around Katagawa’s body and the other rested on his head to idly play with his hair. “Maybe that’s true. But think of all the things you would have missed if that happened.”

“Like what, going on a rampage?”

“I mean, you… did do that. But it’s not too late to do some better things with your life.” Rhys thought for a moment. “Maliwan is still in the area. You can’t really call them off anymore, but what’s say I take you out one of these days and we’ll see what we can do to help some people who have been hurt.”

“...Okay.” 

There was silence after that, and after several minutes Rhys noticed that Katagawa’s body had relaxed against him, and not long after he was asleep. Rhys wasn’t about to move and disturb him, so he shifted a little to get comfortable and closed his eyes.


	8. Chapter 8

Rhys had stayed in the morning to help clean up the room. Among the mess on the floor were two small prosthetic fingers, which must have come loose either before or during the freakout Katagawa had had. They got set aside for safekeeping until Rhys could get ahold of someone who would know how to get them put back on properly. In the meantime, Katagawa’s knuckles got more biogel and Rhys made an attempt to cleanly wrap up his hands to keep the gel in place while Katagawa used his hands for other things. 

After the outburst, Katagawa had been tentatively open to communicating. He had still been silent sometimes, but he was no longer being actively obstinate the rest of the time. Even better, some of the things Rhys had given him to keep busy had been moving around the room like they were being used. One time Rhys even caught him putting together a jigsaw puzzle on the floor.

A few days later, they were ready to head out on the promised excursion. While Rhys pulled on a coat in preparation to leave, Katagawa walked into the room. His hands were still bandaged, but he had put his gloves over them, the pinkie finger hanging loose. “Aren’t people going to recognize me if I just go out there?”

“Until we get off Atlas campus, I definitely think you should keep a low profile.” Rhys grabbed an oversized coat he kept around and offered it, and Katagawa took it. “But random people on the street, I think you should be alright. Like, you and I could pick company leaders out of a crowd, but most people have no good reason to know what we look like. Hell, I get away with walking around in public anonymously and I basically live here.”

Katagawa still looked concerned, but didn’t press the matter. 

They left the building together, Katagawa largely keeping his eyes towards the ground. Only a few people acknowledged them, all of them politely saying hello and hesitating as if they wanted to start a conversation. Rhys politely returned the greeting but kept walking to make clear he wasn’t going to stop right now. 

Once away from Atlas, it was a decently short drive to their destination. On arrival, they got out of the car near a large crowd of people and a few tents set up in a side street. There were a few blockades to stop vehicle traffic from coming through.

“We’ve been making some great progress driving out Maliwan. They’re pulling out, but not fast enough, and certain units just seem… eager to keep doing what they were already doing.” Rhys pointed towards the crowd. “This area is reliably clear, so we’ve been helping to hand out supplies to people who need them.”

Rhys led the way towards the tents, and once close enough, called out to the people inside. He helped out here sometimes, so he knew the volunteers fairly well. A few of them noticed him and waved back. 

“How’s it been today?” Rhys walked behind the set up tables, already starting to help move things around to make the workflow faster. 

“Not too bad.” A young man who was here often but whose name Rhys had never managed to catch glanced up, and over at Katagawa, who was standing at the edge of the tent looking lost. “If you’ve brought help, that’s great. We’ve been a little short-handed the past few days.”

“Well, then let’s get things rolling. He’s new here, can you give him the rundown for me?”

The young man walked over to Katagawa and held a hand out to shake. “Great to see a new face. Name’s Jason.” Overhearing it, Rhys had to stop himself from physically reacting. Jason! Of course! 

Katagawa accepted the handshake. “Hi. I’m, uh…” There was a short pause, during which Rhys could see the gears turning in Katagawa’s head. “I’m Kim.”

“Awesome. Come over here and I’ll show you how this works.” Jason led the way past Rhys, and as Katagawa followed, he made eye contact with Rhys, staring in disbelief. Rhys smiled and gave him a nod, then went back to work.

Things went smoothly, for the most part. The crowd of people thinned as the day went on and things got handed out. Around the early afternoon, a new shift of people came in, and Rhys took the opportunity to mention to someone that he and “Kim” were going to leave for a bit and come back. 

He didn’t actually know where Katagawa was, and just as he wandered off to search the surrounding area, he heard shouting. With dismay he realized he recognized both voices, and took off in the direction of the noise.

He turned a corner and found Lorelei in the middle of knocking Katagawa over and pointing a gun at his head. While this was happening, Katagawa looked less afraid for his life and more just pissed off. Lorelei looked up as Rhys appeared. “You’re just in time! Caught this snaky bastard wandering around over here. He’s got a lot of fucking nerve being alive.”

“Lorelei, I know this looks bad, but I promise it’s alright.” Rhys held up his hands in a ‘stop’ motion. He knew eventually someone with Atlas was going to find out, but he had hoped it wouldn’t be this soon, and he definitely didn’t want it to be Lorelei.

“Alright? You’ve lost your mind. Permission to kill him?”

“Permission denied. Put your gun away.” Rhys waited until she did as he asked before continuing. “I understand how you feel, I swear I do, but you’re going to have to trust me.” He walked over and offered Katagawa a hand to help him get up, which Katagawa accepted.

Lorelei’s mouth hung open slightly as she watched incredulously. “You’re completely off your rocker. We’ve spent how long trying to-”

Rhys interrupted her, looking at Katagawa to indicate who he was speaking to. “I’ll meet you at the car. I need to talk to Lorelei privately for a minute.” Katagawa did as he was asked, watching Lorelai carefully as he left. 

Lorelai waited until Katagawa was gone before going on and raising her voice a little. “Like I was saying, we’ve spent how long trying to chase Maliwan out of here, and after all that rat bastard has done and how many people he’s gotten killed, he just gets to walk around like nothing happened?”

“I’m not trying to deny any of that! You’re right! He’s responsible for an incredible amount of suffering. But if he’s alive, isn’t it better to make him help us fix it?”

“No, it’s better to kill him.” With a sigh, Rhys realized this was going to be a difficult sell.

“Okay, well, that’s one way of looking at it.” Rhys ran a hand through his hair. “You’re probably even being more level-headed than me about it. He’s done some awful stuff. But I have to try.”

“No you don’t. He’s got it coming and no one’s making you stand in the way.”

“I  _ want _ to try, alright?” Rhys took a deep breath. He was finally feeling optimistic about his chances of turning Katagawa around for the first time, and didn’t want to be talked out of it now. “If it turns out, someday down the line, that I was wrong and he’s still evil, I’ll even make sure you can be the one to blow his brains out. But until then, all I ask is that you don’t shoot him. You don’t have to like him or be nice. Just no bullets.”

Lorelei didn’t look happy, but after a pause she gave a curt “fine” and walked away. Rhys accepted that that was as good as he was going to get and took his leave as well.

Katagawa was in the car like Rhys had asked him to be, and he looked less than happy. Rhys climbed into the driver’s seat and, when he noticed Katagawa about to say something, he intentionally cut him off, not wanting to give him the chance to mope. “Where do you want to eat?”

Katagawa stopped for a moment to process, then shrugged. “I don’t know what there is around here. Is there somewhere you want to go?”

“You’re gonna have to give me some kind of hints about what food you like.”

“I’ll eat whatever.”

“I’m going to pick something, and if you don’t like it, it’s gonna be your own fault. Yes?”

“Sounds great.” A smirk showed up on Katagawa’s face, and he settled back into his seat.

Rhys thought to himself for a moment and settled on a nearby place that was right next to a small park. It was a nice day to sit outside. Also, it was close enough that driving was hardly necessary, but he drove regardless and left Katagawa outside in the park while he went inside. 

Upon Rhys’s return, Katagawa had found a short stone wall to sit on. Rhys met him there and hopped up, then handed him his order. “So, your name’s not Kim.”

“It’s my middle name.” Katagawa opened the container and dug in; he was apparently hungrier than he looked.

“I didn’t think you had one.” Rhys started as well, but slower.

“No one else in my family does.” Katagawa shoved his mouthful into his cheek to talk. “You know how sometimes parents let the older kids help name the younger ones? Two of my siblings disagreed, so I just got both names.”

“Cute.”

Katagawa hesitated a moment, then turned to look at Rhys. “Speaking of names, you know you can call me by my first name, right?”

“Hm?” Rhys had been caught with his mouth full.

“You don’t call me Katagawa to my face, but I hear you say it. I’m not upset or something. It’s just that Katagawa was my dad. I’ve always been Torao.”

“I don’t remember that being the case on Helios.” Truthfully, Rhys was god awful with names and he knew it. He could remember that Kim wasn’t right, but before right now, he had forgotten Torao’s first name.

“Well, let’s try that again. I’ve always been Torao to people who know me.”

“So I count now, huh?”

“I mean…” Torao rolled his eyes a little. “I don’t know about you, but I think after you see someone naked you’ve earned the right to use their first name.”

Rhys had to press the back of his hand against his mouth in order to not accidentally spit. Neither of them had ever acknowledged that part out loud, and it certainly felt odd. It didn’t upset him, but it  _ was _ new.

Torao noticed the reaction and burst out laughing. It was a sound Rhys hadn’t heard in a long time, and the first time he remembered seeing Torao smile since he had been there. He couldn’t help but laugh along a bit. “What?”

“Nothing. Just you.” Torao worked out a few last giggles. “You’ve always been easily flustered, y’know? The second day you flushed completely red when I approached you. Your whole face.”

“Come on, cut me a break.” Rhys was trying to defend himself, but his tone remained playful, since he hadn’t stopped smiling yet.

“No, I know, it’s just funny.”

There was a pause, and Rhys took the opportunity to change the subject. “So how is it being outdoors again?”

“It’s good, actually.” Torao leaned back on the grass and supported himself with one arm. “I was almost expecting some kind of catastrophe, and one hasn’t happened yet, so today’s got that going for it.”

“So you’re not too hurt about Lorelai?” Rhys tried to speak softly, so as not to seem antagonistic about the situation.

“Who, the lady earlier?” Torao looked down. “Well, I have to assume that people here have plenty of reasons to hate me, so I can’t say I didn’t see it coming.”

“She’s in charge of defense around here. She’s amazing and I’d trust her with my life. Once in a while we just butt heads.” To be more of a comfort, Rhys wanted to say something about how Lorelei would come around, but he also didn’t want to lie, and he didn’t really think he was going to convince her anytime soon. 

Torao looked like he was about to reply, but his casual gaze snapped upwards into an alert stare back in the direction they had come from earlier. His mouth hung open slightly for a moment. “You might have to trust her with your life right now.”

Well, that was both alarming and vague. Rhys sat up straight and followed Torao’s eyes, but all he could see was buildings. “What is it?”

Torao didn’t answer. He squinted, then tossed aside his food container, hopped down off the wall, and broke into a full sprint.

Rhys scrambled to react. He dropped to the ground and tried to catch up on foot, but realized it was no use; not only did Torao have longer legs, but he was straight up faster. Instead, he went for the car, turned it around, and caught up that way, slowing down when he was close. “Where to?”

Torao climbed on, holding onto the outside of the car. “Lorelei.”

Rhys hit the gas, and in under a minute they were back at the tents. Torao leapt off the car and took off running again, hollering for Lorelei. She quickly appeared in response to the commotion, and upon realizing who it was, her body language turned hostile immediately. 

“What the hell are you doing back here?” Rhys was close enough behind to be in earshot of what he expected to turn into a fight.

Torao hunched over, trying to catch his breath. “Two cloaked Maliwan ships. West. 45 seconds.”

Lorelei folded her arms. “And why do you know that?”

Torao used one hand to pull open his eyelid on his implant eye. “This.”

She looked doubtful for a few more seconds, but Lorelei eventually called out for her nearby troops to rally, as well as for the area to clear. The crowd disappeared into alleys and behind structures along the side of the street. For a moment Lorelei and her troops all stood there, doing a whole lot of nothing.

Right as a few of the Atlas troops started getting restless, the unmistakable roar of incoming Maliwan ships became audible in the distance. The people behind cover were struck silent.

Always fast-moving, the ships arrived seconds later and started phasing in troops. Rhys couldn’t seem to do anything but stare. This had been the most secure area for months. What was going on?

He was snapped out of it when Torao grabbed him around the waist and dragged him behind cover. Once he was there, Torao tried to get up and head towards the fight, and Rhys had to grab him back to stop him. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I might be able to convince some of them to fuck off or something.”

“The ones that could be reasoned with, they already packed up and left when they were told to!” Rhys hissed. “Sit down.”

Torao did as he was told, and Rhys let go of him. Torao didn’t seem used to being reduced to a civilian in a situation like this, and he remained antsy. The firefight must have only lasted a few minutes, but it felt far longer. Rhys didn’t move and didn’t let Torao move until he heard Lorelei call that the area was clear. 

The first thing he did after standing up was to run over to Lorelei and check her over. “Are you okay?”

Lorelei smacked him in the arm, managing a smile. “I’m fine. Don’t start fussing.” 

“I really don’t get why they were out this far. It’s been ages since they came within a mile of here.” Rhys looked out over the scene of the fight, littered with bodies. 

“I’ve got no clue. The other thing I wanna know is why your little friend hasn’t been out here helping if he can just spot Maliwan coming through walls.”

“I didn’t know he could do that, otherwise I would have said something.” 

Lorelei looked sideways, and following her gaze, he noticed she had spotted Torao. Rhys couldn’t help but be a little apprehensive when she started walking away and waving. “Tall guy, over here! Oi!”

Torao took notice and met her halfway. “Hey, uh, good work out there.”

“Any other Maliwan ambushes I should know about?” Lorelai cocked one eyebrow. Rhys winced. If she was going to start making accusations like that, things might get ugly.

Torao swiveled around to check in all directions. “Well, the range on this thing is about a mile and a half, and it’s not picking up any energy signatures.”

“Right, so if you could clear something up for me, that would be ace. You’ve been sitting up in Atlas Tower for how long, and you didn’t think to send some info down the line even once?”

“My eye doesn’t just scan all the time, I have to-”

“So today’s the first day you chose to look and there just  _ happened _ to be Maliwan coming into a clear area.” Rhys took this opportunity to walk into the conversation, hoping he wouldn’t have to intervene but ready to do it if he had to.

“If I was somehow responsible for that, why would I come tell you about it?” Torao wasn’t genuinely angry, but he was beginning to sound irate.

“You gave me less than a minute of warning.”

Torao looked like he was about to snap back, but he physically stopped, closing his eyes for a moment. When he spoke again, he sounded less upset, and spoke with more intention. “You’re right, it seems suspicious in context, but I swear I had nothing to do with it.”

“So then-”

“No, I didn’t think to check for Maliwan.” Torao pressed his lips together as if this was taking him a lot of effort. “I’m sorry about that. If you want, I could help look for them going forward.”

“Hey, now we’re getting somewhere.” Lorelei stuck one hand out to shake. “I’ll hold you to that.”

Torao accepted the handshake, wincing just slightly as her hand touched the scar on his even in spite of the glove he was wearing. “Deal.”

Rhys was dumbfounded. He hadn’t thought it was possible. He looked at Lorelei in disbelief, trying to figure out how she had, to some degree, come around over the course of a couple hours. He stayed behind as Torao wandered away. “Just like that?”

Lorelei watched Torao’s back until he was comfortably out of earshot. “Oh, don’t get me wrong, I still think the bastard deserves to die, but I’d be mad to pass up the ability to just spot Maliwan from anywhere.”

“So you agree it’s better to make him help us.”

“Alright, don’t push it.” Lorelei headed back towards the tents, and Rhys followed. “So how is this going to work? Am I gonna have to pick him up or something?”

“You can swing by, or I can bring him to you.” It was an untold relief that Lorelei was this eager. Rhys blew out a breath.

“Alright. Also, we’re still on for pizza in a couple days, yeah?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”


	9. Chapter 9

“Everything good?” Rhys laid his prosthetic arm flat on his desk and pulled up a projection of Lorelei, so he felt less like he was talking to no one alone in his office.

“Yeah, everything’s good. Just wanted to ask if you can come get your buddy. He’s done for now, but I have somewhere to be.”

“Sure, I’ll be there soon. Hang tight.” He closed out the call and took a moment to stretch before getting up to head out. 

Torao had been helping Lorelei for a couple weeks, and the results had been astonishing. Entire swaths of formerly occupied space in the city had been cleared. Lorelei seemed pretty happy about it, and had even called Torao a member of her team yesterday, which was far better than Rhys had ever expected. The only downside was that Lorelei was still justifiably bothered by Torao walking around on his own, so Rhys had been escorting him to and from wherever she said he needed to go.

It was a nice day, and he wasn’t going far, so he went ahead and walked. He wasn’t paying much attention as he went, mostly thinking about what he had to do when he got back, and he only snapped out of it when the cold barrel of a gun pressed up against his temple. 

“You’ll be coming with me.” The voice distortion of Maliwan headgear was unique and hard to miss. Rhys held up his hands without turning to look, and thanked the powers that be for the hands-free nature of his Echo implant. While being walked into a nearby alley, he broadcasted his location and sent a ping to anyone he could get ahold of. Zer0, Lorelei, anyone.

Rhys was led around a few corners before stopping at a small open area enclosed by a few buildings. It was populated with only a couple of Maliwan troops, but much to his dismay, more started to appear quickly from gaps between the surrounding buildings, and all of them were armed.

One of them, with the equipment of  _ some _ type of Maliwan commander, stepped forward. “So glad you’ve decided to join us.” 

“Decided is a strong word.” Rhys would have desperately liked to be more confident about the situation, but frankly, he was terrified, and the shakiness of his voice gave it away.

The commander seemed to ignore it. “I’m sure you’re aware by now that we’re under orders to leave the area. Now, that’s all well and good, but we were sent here to do a job. Do you know what that job is, Rhys?”

“Take over Atlas, probably?” Rhys was only half-listening. He was more focused on the gun currently pointed at his head.

“Take over Atlas, and, failing that, kill you. Considering young Miss Naoko’s recent takeover of Maliwan back at HQ, we’re a little short-staffed for the first one.” The commander took his sweet time approaching Rhys, and every second of it fucking sucked for Rhys. If they were going to kill him no matter what, they could at least have the courtesy to be less smug about it. “And I was getting a little worried that we were running out of time for the second, but then you decided to walk around alone in broad daylight.”

“But if Katagawa isn’t telling you to kill me anymore, then-”

“He’s not telling us anything because he’s dead, and I think we both know whose fault that is.” The commander towered over Rhys, managing to give the impression of a glare without his eyes being visible.. “I figured it’s the least we could do to finish what he started.”

“But h-” Rhys didn’t get a chance to protest again. He yelped as the commander grabbed him by the front of his shirt and lifted him a couple inches off the ground. His attempts to struggle didn’t phase the commander at all.

“We just figured we’d have a little fun with it before getting the job done.” The commander wound up and threw Rhys against the nearest wall. The impact winded him, as well as disoriented him when the back of his head struck the wall. He collapsed to the ground, almost immediately disoriented.

He pushed himself up on his forearms and looked up. The commander was casually striding closer, and the troops around the edge of the area were beginning to close in. Rhys pressed himself against the wall and squeezed his eyes shut in anticipation.

“Lieutenant Harrison! Long time, no see.” Rhys opened his eyes just in time to see Torao walk into the area, hands in the middle of tying his hair up. He was acting the way he had when Rhys first met him: even stride, shoulders back, tone as confident as could be. Every troop in the area froze.

Lieutenant Harrison froze in his tracks. “Sir, you’re-”

“Alive, I know. I was surprised too.” Torao finished with his hair and stood between Harrison and Rhys. 

Harrison hesitated. “We were carrying out your orders, sir. We finally tracked him down.”

“I see that! Except I’ve been told you have new orders, which were to leave.” Torao looked Harrison up and down

“Yes, but-”

“They weren’t from me, right. Well, how about this, I’m ordering you now to leave, and then we won’t have a problem. Sound good?” Torao strode casually around Harrison as he spoke.

“Something’s happened to you.” Harrison turned his head to follow Torao.

“Hell, maybe it has. I’ve been out all day helping these clowns track down the units that refused to leave. I had some qualms at first, I was like, well, Maliwan soldiers are people too, and I think I’ve done enough of the whole hurting people thing.” 

Rhys tried to take the opportunity to move, but Harrison must have been watching him out of the corner of his eye, because as soon as Rhys shifted, Harrison was reaching for him. He stopped when Torao pointed a pistol squarely at Harrison’s temple. His voice was quieter this time, and more threatening. “But let me make one thing very clear. You lay a finger on him again, you’ll be losing your head.”

“You’re out of your mind.” Harrison was starting to sound angry. Rhys was lying on the ground wondering who gave Torao a gun, because it certainly hadn’t been him.

“Probably. My statement stands.”

Harrison thought for a moment, and tried to dive towards Torao and disarm him. Torao pulled the trigger without flinching, and Harrison’s body fell to the ground then lay still.

Torao raised his aim to the rest of the group. “Anyone else? I’ve got all day.”

A flash trooper tried to approach, blinking out of Torao’s line of fire, but once he reappeared, he was quickly dispatched too. The rest of the group backed away.

“That’s what I thought. Go on, get out.” Torao gestured with the muzzle of his gun, and the remaining Maliwan troops disappeared as fast as they had come, back into the shadows.

As soon as the area was clear, Torao put the gun away and dropped into a crouch next to Rhys. Compared to the concrete he was on, Torao’s hands were warm and soft on his face. For a moment, Rhys just wanted to sit there and soak the feeling in. “Hope they didn’t hit you too hard before we got here.”

As if on cue, Lorelei rounded the corner, then doubled over to catch her breath. “Damn, you should’ve done track instead of that whole corporate thing.”

Rhys shifted to sit up a bit, and Torao took his hands away. “Did you give him a gun?”

“So what if I did?”

“Nothing. Just wondering.” Rhys tried to rest his head against the wall, then winced forward again as it stung to touch. He reached back to the spot that hurt, and his fingertips came away red.

“You’re bleeding. Did you hit your head?” Torao reached around the side of Rhys’s head, but didn’t touch the injured spot.

“A little, yeah.”

Lorelei came over and offered her hand to pull Rhys up. “Alright then, back home with you, big guy.” Rhys grabbed her hand as she continued. “And if you don’t go straight to the infirmary when you get there, I’m going to come by and carry you in myself.”

In spite of the fact that he felt a little woozy standing up, Rhys couldn’t help but smile. “Don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Lorelei glanced at Torao. “Hold onto the gun and use it to make sure he goes.” She waited just a second, until Rhys was about to say something, before speaking again. “Just kidding. Give it back.”

Torao did as he was told, and the group headed out. Once they reached the road, Lorelei looked between the boys. “Do you need an escort back to HQ, or am I good to leave?”

“We’ll be fine.” Rhys did his best to stand up properly. “Thank you, though. You’ve been wonderful as always.”

“I do my best.” She raised one hand as a ‘goodbye’ gesture and split off from the group. “See you around.”

The walk back to Atlas HQ was short, but Rhys found himself needing to grab Torao’s arm for balance once or twice. At the entrance to the infirmary, Torao stepped away. “Do you want me to wait for you out here?”

“No, I think I’ll be alright.”

“Okay. Shoot me a message if you change your mind. I’ll be waiting for you upstairs.”

“That sounds a little weird.”

Torao didn’t answer, but winked over his shoulder then laughed as he walked away. Rhys rolled his eyes, but involuntarily grinned before heading into the infirmary

\-------------

“So what’s the verdict?” Torao was sprawled across one of the couches in Rhys’s office. Lately the rules about where he could be were fairly loose as long as there weren’t other people in the office.

“Doctor said I’m probably fine.” Rhys sunk into the chair next to Torao. He had been in the infirmary for a while, and on the way back he had had to make a couple stops to discuss important goings-on. It was dark outside now. “Patched up the spot that was bleeding, and said just to be safe I should probably take it easy for a couple days. Take some naps if I can.”

“And are you going to?”

“I doubt it. Too much to do.”

Torao sat up. “You are not going to lecture me every day about being safe and then be like this.”

“Oh, I sure am. Listen, sometimes you get a little beaten up in an alley and that’s just how it is.”

“You could be going to bed right now, you know.”

“That’s true.” Rhys got up and tried to head for his desk. “Or I could catch up on the things I was supposed to do today.” He was not looking forward to tomorrow, if only because he knew the things he had to give his attention to only ever piled up.

He didn’t look, but he could hear Torao get up. Barely a second later, Torao appeared in front of him, bare fingertips starting to trace the section of tattoo visible above Rhys’s collar. His voice had lowered to a soft purr. “I don’t think so.”

Rhys froze completely, not even looking up to make eye contact. It took everything he had to think about something else and not blush profusely. His skin shivered under Torao’s touch, at which point he figured out that he had lost. He stepped away and left his desk alone. “Alright, you got me. I’m going.”

“Good.”

“You better go to bed too, though.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I will.”

Rhys went through the motions of getting ready for bed and, after lying down, ran both hands down his face. What the hell was  _ that _ ? Someone touched his neck once and he just completely fell apart about it? 

With a sigh, Rhys rolled over onto one side and tried to put it out of his mind. For the time being, he was tired enough to forget about it, but in the morning after he had slept was anyone’s game.


	10. Chapter 10

Well, it had finally happened. Rhys had been dreading this the entire time.

He had intended to get a good night’s sleep at Torao’s insistence and then act like nothing had ever happened, just go back to work without ‘taking it easy,’ but he hadn’t gotten half a chance. Every time he tried to go to his desk and do something, he found himself herded away to do something else, or, a couple times, back to bed to lie down and rest. Any time he showed signs of being dizzy or a little vague, Torao refused to let him do anything but lie down. Frankly, the whole thing seemed a little over the top.

Part of the problem with all this was that Rhys had a lot of time to think while he was doing anything other than work. He kept thinking about the limited number of times Torao had gone out of his way to touch him; gently cradling his face after saving his life, the barest brush of fingertips against his neck. Then Torao, usually sitting just a few feet away, would ask why he was making that face, and he would have to ask what face. 

Considering this pattern now, Rhys sighed. Maybe he did have brain damage. He had been avoiding the dangerous question (namely,  _ why _ ), but somewhere in the back of his head he already knew the answer.

He certainly couldn’t just say anything about it. It didn’t seem fair, or even completely accurate, to walk up to the guy who had been locked in Rhys’s office for months and tell him that, by the way, Rhys was in love with him. Which he wasn’t, by the way. 

It felt stupid to say love had anything to do with it. It didn’t seem like that should be allowed, under the circumstances. Love usually didn’t involve any of the events that had transpired in the last year. In fact, those things usually categorically excluded love from the roster.

He was not, Rhys firmly assured himself, remotely in love. He probably just had some wires crossed after being smacked around a bit. He was going to stop thinking about this soon and remember how to act.

Torao was nowhere to be seen, so it was time to try and get something done again. Rhys quietly got to his feet and, the coast still being clear, went for his desk. He got about halfway there before one of his hands was grabbed. As he squeezed his eyes shut, Rhys could practically feel the idea of forgetting about it sailing out the window. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” Thankfully, Torao wasn’t upset at Rhys’s fifth (or so) attempt at being productive. If anything, he sounded lightly amused.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Rhys opened his eyes again and turned around.

“Come on, don’t play dumb.” Torao tugged on Rhys’s hand. “We talked about this.”

Rhys didn’t move. “You know, it’s not just a joke, I really do have stuff to do. I don’t stop being in charge of a company just because I have a headache or something.”

Torao frowned. “Does your head hurt?”

“A little- look, that’s not the point. I need to work.”

“Yeah, when you stop seeming concussed.”

“No, right now.” Rhys extracted his hand from Torao’s grip and started walking again.

“You want me to tell Lorelei you’re over-exerting yourself?” Torao was following him. He couldn’t take a hint, could he?

“I want you to knock it off.” As Rhys turned around, he caught sight of Torao reaching towards him again, and pushed his arm away. “Don’t. Quit trying to mess with me, alright? It’s not funny.”

Torao looked confused and a little hurt, but Rhys didn’t stop to continue the conversation. He reached his desk uninterrupted and, when he turned back the way he had come, Torao was gone. Probably back to his room. Somehow it hurt for him to have disappeared from the area completely, but Rhys willed himself to forget about it and get something done.

One hour blended into the next. He was fully occupied, trying to multitask between catching up on audio messages and doing things with his hands. The amount of time he had already missed left him with more to do than he could reasonably get done in what was left of today, but if he had to pull an all-nighter it certainly wouldn’t have been the first time. 

At some point he snapped out of it and sat back to take a deep breath. There was more to do, but, looking at the clock, Torao might still be awake. If for no other reason than to stave off the worry that he had upset Torao earlier, Rhys figured now would be a good time to go talk to him quickly. If something was wrong, he could apologize.

His stride had become a little uneven from exhaustion, but it was nothing severe. Rhys had done worse before; one time he didn’t sleep for three days and  _ that _ had really been a disaster. He ended up crying after dropping his pen and that had been the event to clue him in that it was time to give it up.

He knocked on Torao’s door and got no answer, but found that the door was unlocked. Weird. Usually if Torao was going to bed, he locked it. Rhys knocked again as a warning and let himself in. 

Torao wasn’t there. No sign of him, nothing out of place, not even a note mentioning that he was going somewhere. It wasn’t like any of these things were necessarily required, but considering he had seemed hurt earlier, Rhys was terrified. He could be anywhere, doing who knows what.

He closed and locked Torao’s door, then headed straight for the elevator, pinging Torao over Echo to see if he could get a location, or at least an indication that he was safe. In the time it took him to get off of Atlas campus, he hadn’t gotten a response.

Think. Where would he have gone? It had been hours, so he could have been anywhere, which really didn’t help matters. He had threatened to talk to Lorelei, but she was offline for the night. Nothing else was going on at this hour. With a chill, Rhys considered the possibility that wherever Torao was, Maliwan might be too.

Rhys had no leads, so he just started walking. The sheer size of the metroplex made this a pretty useless strategy, but what else could he do?

He wandered for a few minutes before finally receiving a ping back, with a location attached. Torao seemed to be only a couple minutes away on foot, thankfully, and there was no indication he was in distress. Rhys let out a deep breath and got moving.

Upon arriving at the given location, it turned out that Torao was at the park that Rhys had taken him to a few weeks ago, laying on the grass against the incline of a hill in such a way that he could see out over the water and to the city beyond.

He spotted Rhys coming and waved. Rhys waved back as he approached. “Scared me half to death. How long have you been out here?”

“A while. Didn’t mean to scare you; you seemed pretty absorbed when I left and I really didn’t think you’d catch me gone. Sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry.” Rhys sat down next to Torao on the grass. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you like I did.”

“You were frustrated, we’ve all been there.” There was a long silence before Torao spoke up again. “So, I have to ask, do you want me not to touch you? If it bothers you, all you have to do is say so.”

There it was. It was a warranted question, after what Rhys had said earlier, but it still felt loaded. If he was serious about moving on with his life, it would have been a no-brainer to tell Torao to stop, and then it wouldn’t be a problem anymore. But it wasn’t that easy, because he didn’t actually want that. 

He almost said so without thinking, but caught himself. He kept doing that; this ‘act without thinking’ habit was the only reason Torao was alive, and while Rhys was at this exact moment glad he had done it, he couldn’t help but wonder if it would have been better to leave him on the ground. 

For one, Torao could never live a normal life again. That was largely his own fault, since people who sent a team of reps to negotiate instead of an army didn’t really have this problem. So, in a sense, maybe it was proper karma for him to survive and experience the consequences of his actions. Rhys had spent so much time over the last months thinking about what was the right course of action in this situation, and none of them worked out in his brain. He could argue any side of this and still come up wrong.

It was starting to seem like there was no right answer. Maybe keeping a murderer in his office wasn’t as close to right as he could have gotten, but it probably wasn’t the furthest either, because as he looked at Torao now, he didn’t only see the man who wielded Maliwan like a knife, he also saw the man who was helping to push Maliwan out of the metroplex and came to Rhys’s side when he needed it. He seemed to be genuinely improving, or at least Rhys wanted to believe he was.

“Rhys?” Torao snapped his fingers a few times to get Rhys’s attention. “I need an answer on this one, buddy.”

“I…” Rhys still didn’t have an answer. Whatever he said felt binding, because the nerve it would take him to come back later and go ‘actually, I changed my mind, I want you to touch me’ or vice versa was more than he’d ever had in his entire life. Man, this was a stupid thing to have to debate with himself about. 

He was too tired for this. Without saying anything, he climbed to his feet and started to head back to Atlas. He didn’t hear anything other than his own footsteps, so he assumed Torao wasn’t following him.

Soon, he arrived back at his office alone. With a sigh, he sat back down at his desk and tried to get back to work. This time, though, something just wasn’t working like it had earlier. He couldn’t focus quite right, and his pace quickly lagged.

He had no idea how much time had passed when Torao came back in, but at least this time he noticed in the first place. Rhys looked up and waved, and Torao waved back. “You should sleep, you know.”

“Probably.” Rhys tossed his pen aside and rubbed at one of his eyes. “But it’s never as easy as that.”

Torao hesitated a moment, then approached Rhys’s desk, but stayed a short distance away. “It is that easy, though. Come on, up with you.”

Rhys considered just going ahead and doing as Torao asked, then decided against it. “Did you never get stuck with paperwork to do at Maliwan?”

“Yeah, I did, and that’s why I think you should stop for the night. I bet anything the work you’re doing gets worse as you wear yourself out.”

“Alright, maybe you got me there.” Rhys sighed. “But if I don’t keep after it, then it piles up and instead of poorly done it’s not done at all.”

Following the general contours of the other interactions Rhys had had with Torao recently, about now was the time Torao would try to reach out towards him, and Rhys would give in, but it didn’t happen this time. One of Torao’s arms briefly moved like he was going to, but thought better of it. Rhys’s lack of an answer had been extrapolated to mean “stop,” it seemed.

It should have been a relief. Rhys had been telling himself that all day, and it didn’t stick. It still just felt bad. He wanted to say something, but had no idea  _ what _ , and he was already running low on the emotional energy it would take him to think of something.

“I love you,” he blurted out, then immediately winced upon realizing he had said it. He put his head down on his desk and folded his arms around it.

The pause was a strange mix of excruciating and merciful. It gave Rhys respite from whatever came next, but also forced him to wait it out until that happened.

“So that’s what this was about.” Torao’s voice was softer than before.

Rhys sat up, but still refused to make eye contact. “...Yeah. I just…” He wasn’t going to be able to walk this one back. He got up and tried to leave around the side of the desk Torao wasn’t on. “I’m sorry.”

Torao moved to cut him off, and Rhys stopped and looked up at him, expecting a poor reaction. Oddly enough, Torao had half a smile on his face. “No need to be sorry.” He held one open hand sideways towards Rhys as a gesture for one of Rhys’s hands. “May I?”

Rhys tentatively raised a hand. Torao took hold of it, brought both their hands up towards his face, and kissed the back of Rhys’s hand. “I know you thought I was messing with you, but that wasn’t why I was doing it.”

Huh? “What?”

“I love you too, genius.” Torao’s voice caught in his throat partway through the sentence, although there was no sign he was about to cry. It seemed almost impossible that it was hard for him to say out loud too, since he had managed to do it at his own leisure.

Rhys felt like he was about to pass out. It was the middle of the night and he was supposed to process this? Here? Right now? That just wasn’t fair.

“You alright?” Apparently Rhys’s current state was visible. Torao rested one hand on Rhy’s shoulder as if to steady him.

“Yeah. I… yeah.” Rhys shook his head as if that would clear it. “I think you were right. I do need sleep.”

“You really do. I better leave you to it.” Torao tried to let go of Rhys’s hand, but Rhys held on tighter. “Hm?”

“I mean, we both need sleep, you could, uh…” Rhys had imagined this going smoother over the course of the split-second he’d thought about it, but it wasn’t working. His suggestion was intended to be completely innocent. It was just that tripping over his words in the wrong spot left it a little too open to interpretation. Torao cocked an eyebrow at him, and he felt his face start heating up. “Only if you want to! I know you have your boundaries.”

“I don’t let people touch me because the last time I did it cost me a finger. Can I trust you to be gentler than that?”

“Yeah, I think I can do that.” Rhys managed a smile, and Torao returned it.

“Then let’s go.”


End file.
